The list of baronets who died unmarried is far from complete. I picked them up when I ran across them, but the researcher for whom I compiled the listing wasn't really interested in them, so it isn't systematic.

The following title was not recognized in the English peerage:
James Drummond 3rd Jacobite duke of Perth (1713-1746)
John Drummond 4th Jacobite duke of Perth (c. 1715-1747) [born in France; died in Antwerp]

Another installment of title-holders who died unmarried. You will note that this is not distinguishing among English, Irish, Scottish, and GB titles, but I could query the db to get that. I could also query the db to find out how many of the first holders of a title listed here were younger sons of men who held some other title. For social history, that would be relevant. As Cannon pointed out, few of the newly granted 18th century titles went to actual "new men." The majority of recipients had prior connections to existing peers.

Robert Bertie, 4th duke of Ancaster and Kesteven (1756-1779) [died of scarlet fever; left an acknowledged illegitimate daughter]

Virginia - I am curious about your database of significant numbers of those with heriditary titles not marrying. Many people died early due to poor health which was, of course, not uncommon. How have you constructed your database? Any particular published sources? I can certainly see the case for younger sons, because they often had to make their own way and went into professions where marriage was either a barrier or outright forbidden: universities, army, navy, church or the bar.

When I look at family trees, I often see men marrying several times due to the early deaths of wives (presumably in childbirth) and I've presumed this was in an effort to get an heir, especially where there were unbreakable entails involved.

Elaine

I've now given you pretty much the list for 1603-1824. A couple of names came up of never-married peers who were born within that period, but not age 21 by 1824; I'm not sure why. I'll presume a glitch in my data entry process. Please ignore them.

I think a lot of people on the AAR boards got a little bored with the "real history" stuff that I posted some time back, so unless you need analysis of birth cohorts or lifespans, etc., I won't bother to run queries.

Where I have the date of death and a note that the person was "at least" age x, that's calculated from the date of death of whichever of his parents died first.

Do you want the biographical notes on all these men?

They aren't so obvious when you just look at "family trees," because by definition they aren't in the direct line of ascent of the current title holder, if the title even still exists.

Here's something else to consider. Although there was a long fight for women's rights and equality, etc, etc, are women any happier now that they have a bewildering and often contradictory range of life choices? Is Superwoman any happier than her great, great, great grannie whose life was spelt out more or less from birth? Has women's lib gone too far, emasculated men and bitten us all in the rear?

I think that people are resilient enough to be happy in most situations, if they really set their minds to it. Aside from that, I don't think I can talk about happiness in general with any real authority.

Yet I must say that I think "choice" is a huge sacred cow and shibboleth. We seem to justify everything about the present by saying, "Well, at least we have choices people didn't have in so-and-so . . ." Yet I think ours is the first age to worship the abstract idea of "choice" in this way.

The suffragettes wanted something more definite than "choice": they wanted votes for women. At least that was something anyone could get behind or oppose with real clarity.

Allyson wrote:

I'm sure lots of women wish they were married to someone rich enough that they didn't have to work, but so do some men! Of my friends, I definitely hear the 'I wish I could stay home and be a housewife/househusband' from men and women alike, though it often (from both genders) comes off as 'I want to stay home and not work', grass-is-greener sort of statement.

I've actually wanted to be a housewife since I was very young. A feminist aunt tried to convince me it wasn't what I really wanted, and for a while I just wasn't right in the head.

Statements such as that may come off as lazy, but I've actually tested both worlds. I've had jobs outside the home and also spent a year as housekeeper to my aging grandparents, and I can tell you which one was harder (the latter) and which one I preferred (also the latter). Now that I'm back in the workforce, I get my vicarious fix by reading the blogs of stay at home mothers; if they also home school their children, so much the better!_________________"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton)

With all due respect, I don't think you have tested both worlds. Caring for aging grandparents is no doubt a very difficult task. I had total care of my mom after a debilitating stroke so I know how hard it can be. But it does not come close to carrying a life for 9 months (with all the discomforts that entails), giving birth, waking up every 2 hours to take care of it for months on end, nursing, trying to figure out what the baby needs cuz it can't talk, not being able to leave it alone ever, etc. And I've done that and worked outside the home, simultaneously at some points in my life, and am truly grateful that I've had the choice to stay at home or work outside of home. But I also realize that most people today, in this economy, do not have a choice. It's instead a series of compromises. So I don't think choice is worshipped, but rather a goal that most people never truly get to experience.

I think it's interesting the ways in which we want to be like our parents and the ways in which they provide lessons in what we don't want to be. My mother stayed at home to raise her 3 daughters, and all 3 of us felt that our mother -- much as she loved us -- was bored and restless as a stay-at-home mom. As a result, all 3 of us work outside the home (although it must be said that my youngest sister doesn't have children, so it's not so unusual), because none of us want to be like our mother in that way. OTOH, my mother-in-law worked outside the home and my sister-in-law always resented it, so when she had her 2 daughters she stayed at home and enjoyed it.

I personally always loved that I had so many facets to my life. I was a wife, a mother, a working woman, a friend, a volunteer, etc. When things were hard at home (child going through the terrible twos, sleep deprivation, whatever), I knew I could go to work and talk to adults, that projects had a foreseeable end, and that my co-workers could be trusted to feed and clothe themselves. When things were hard at work (boss made an unreasonable demand, project was underfunded), I knew I could come home to a family that loved me just as I loved them -- unconditionally. Sure I was tired and at times felt pulled in a number of different directions. But I was so grateful that these were all interesting directions; if anything, I wanted more hours in the day to spend on all of them. Certainly I didn't feel wonderful every moment or every day, but mostly I felt quite blessed (and it didn't hurt that I have a husband who loves to cook).

With all due respect, I don't think you have tested both worlds. Caring for aging grandparents is no doubt a very difficult task. I had total care of my mom after a debilitating stroke so I know how hard it can be. But it does not come close to carrying a life for 9 months (with all the discomforts that entails), giving birth, waking up every 2 hours to take care of it for months on end, nursing, trying to figure out what the baby needs cuz it can't talk, not being able to leave it alone ever, etc.

There's no need to get defensive. It's all good, and I do look forward to being a mother someday, right?

What I meant was that I know what it's like to work outside the home and be independent, and also what it's like to be supported by somebody else while doing what many people might not consider a "real" job. While I was taking care of my grandparents, I ended up asking my mom (who kept her professional job) for an allowance for the first time since high school. It was very humbling for me (even taking my huge "pay cut" into account), but given our situation, it really was fair.

The second situation is definitely a less powerful position and many women have been made to feel like second class citizens for having chosen it or something like it._________________"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton)

Here's something else to consider. Although there was a long fight for women's rights and equality, etc, etc, are women any happier now that they have a bewildering and often contradictory range of life choices? Is Superwoman any happier than her great, great, great grannie whose life was spelt out more or less from birth? Has women's lib gone too far, emasculated men and bitten us all in the rear?

Happiness is subjective. What makes one person happy doesn't necessarily make another person happy. Is happiness the correct way to judge progress? Everyone has their own definition of happiness. It's a nice by-product and to be happy is icing on the cake. I do think giving people the right to choose makes people feel they are in control of their lives. They then own their lives. If they do well they can be happy about their choices. If life does not work well for them they have no one to blame but themselves.

If there are any emasculated men as a result of the women's movement, they have done it to themselves. They are insecure and frightened over their loss of their special privileges and angry they have to compete on merit with women. Must be pretty scary to those guys that dislike women and feel that women are inferior to them. I would think most men who feel they have been emasculated are those men who are pretty insecure or are misogynists. People should be judged on merit, ability, education and talent not on race, gender or social standing.

I certainly appreciate choices I have had in my life. My sister graduated from high school in 1956. She said her two choices were nursing and teaching. She opted for nursing. By the time I graduated in 1973 the world was opening up a little more so I had more choices than my sister.

When my first child was born in 1989 I chose to be a stay-at-home mom. I was fortunate I had a choice. If I could not have stayed home I probably would not have had kids. Again my choice. It was also nice to have a good income that allowed me to stay home. The only thing that bothers me about the debate between stay-at-home moms and working moms is the hypocrisy. Our society expects upper-class moms to stay home but expects lower-class moms to work. Society is basically telling them not to have children. You can't tell me that lower-class mom's kids don't need their mothers as much as upper-class kids need their moms. As long as kids are loved, nurtured and wanted it shouldn't matter who has kids.

Having reproductive choice certainly gives women more freedom. Women should have the final say with their bodies. To have kids or not to have kids is a woman's right. It's not always about being fertile and being able to create life but the desire to be a mother and a willingness to provide a loving, nurturing environment for any children brought into this world. If a woman can not provide that environment and has no desire to provide it she is better off and so is society as well as her children to either give that child up for adoption or to terminate the pregnancy. And what choice she makes is no one's business.

I'm not a misogynist, and I've still got plenty of testosterone moving around in the blood stream, but I do think that the extremes of the women's movement have so blurred the line between men and women that both genders get confused about what is and what is not "politically correct." In general, the old rules about how men and women conduct themselves in their interactions have, also, I think, led to deterioration of general conduct.

And, when it becomes a problem to choose a pronoun that won't offend someone--usually female, I think--language suffers also.

I have never believed in the strict differentiation between male and female traits anyway. People in general are different and while there are tendencies of certain traits/interests/abilities correlating with one gender or the other (and so far no one can tell whether those tendencies are the result of nature, nurture or a combination of both), both men and women exist along a broad range of traits, interests and abilities. While some people may extremely conform to one gender stereotype or the other, most of us are a mix of stereotypically male and female traits. In short, men and women are not different. People are different.

I am very grateful that the 1960s did away with the whole "men are like that and women are like this" mentality, though those attitudes have begun to rear their ugly head again in recent years under the guise of evolutionary biology. And while I have no beef with either evolution or evolutionary biologists, I really wish they would stick to fossils and fruit flies and leave anything with the brain capacity of a chimpanzee or higher alone.

As a result, I find many of the old rules of conduct between men and women stifling, redundant and sometimes downright insulting to both genders. There are gestures of general civility that make sense regardless of gender. For example, I think it's perfectly natural to hold open the door for the person behind me, whether that person is male or female, old or young. And if the person in front of me lets the door slam into my face, I think, "What a jerk!", regardless of gender.

Other rules used to make sense, but are redundant now, for example the old chestnut about how the man should always enter the restaurant first. I absolutely hated that rule, because it seemed to imply that women were second class citizens that had to wait until the important people, i.e. men, were inside. Then I read that the reasoning behind the "men go first rule" was that the men could shield the women from flying tables, chairs or glasses. Which made sense - during the Regency. However, how often do you enter a restaurant where the patrons are likely to throw furniture around these days?

Other old norms of conduct are downright insulting, e.g. the assumption that the man always pays for coffee, dinner, movie tickets and hopes (or in the nastier cases assumes) that the woman will pay him back with sex in due time. In the early stages of a romantic/potentially romantic relationship, I always pay for my own dinner, movie ticket or whatever. And if I can't afford it, I bloody well say so. In fact, I think a lot of potential awkwardness between men and women could be avoided, if people would just talk to each other. Not sure if a woman would feel insulted if a man opened the door for her, brought her flowers or whatever? Ask her. And frankly, only the most extreme and humourless of feminists are offended when a man holds the door open for them or holds their coat. Most of us may find some things a bit old-fashioned (e.g. the coat holding thing usually makes it more difficult for me to get into my coat than otherwise), but have no real problem with it and especially aren't bitchy about it.

Though I agree with dick about the pronoun issue (and in many ways, it's even worse in German). Getting upset about pronouns or the gender ratio of stick figures on traffic signs (yes, I once met a feminist who was crusading for equality in traffic signage) is counterproductive, as long as there are still way too many really important problems to tackle.

Agreed that the old rules of conduct between men and women, when one thinks about them or the reasons for them, appear silly. But I also think that, like good manners in general, they created greater ease in most situations. Neither gender, when the rules were known, had any doubts about what to say or what to do in most social situations. With some of the more ardent feminists, that ease can no longer be counted on.

I have never believed in the strict differentiation between male and female traits anyway. People in general are different and while there are tendencies of certain traits/interests/abilities correlating with one gender or the other (and so far no one can tell whether those tendencies are the result of nature, nurture or a combination of both), both men and women exist along a broad range of traits, interests and abilities. While some people may extremely conform to one gender stereotype or the other, most of us are a mix of stereotypically male and female traits. In short, men and women are not different. People are different.

This looks good on paper and what person could not agree with you? It makes sense, appears logical...and yet, I feel there are differences between men and women--in how they process thoughts and interact. Granted, there are not as many spaces in our behaviors as we once thought, though; and that's a good thing. I haven't studied this on a professional level or earned any degrees in psychology, etc. But, generally, IMO, there are differences, some subtle and some not, that exist between females and males.

I'm part of the feminist generation and I remember well the days when we yearned for the equality--and even more--for the respect men had in the workplace. Looking back, I know we succeeded at least in part. Recently, the wife of one of my best friends was offered a transfer and promotion if she moved to another state, and my friend said he was moving with her, that it was her turn to follow her dream. Now that's commitment to equality and respect!

A few years ago when my youngest daughter married, she decided to give up her career as an HR director and be a stay-at-home wife (and now a mom). I found myself becoming unaccountably annoyed at first. I'd set such a fine example for her by pursuing my own career. Didn't she get it? Then I realized that what we'd fought for wasn't the freedom to work but the freedom to choose.

My daughter is eminently happy with her choice. However, having that choice was an important point we feminists often overlooked while struggling to be part of the "boys' club" in years past. Now there are options for women. They can choose to follow a career or take time out for family. As I was growing up, the expectations were set for girls, and that's what I and many others rebelled against.

When I was in my first year of college, I met a girl who asked me, "So, why are you here? Because your parents sent you or to find a husband?" Stunned, I mumbled something about wanting an education and beat a hasty retreat. It's different today.

Heroines in our novels need to be consistent with the times they live in, but they can be creative and push the envelope a little. That's what makes them intriguing--and attractive to men who regard other women as flighty little debutantes._________________"I write only when I'm inspired and I make it a point to be inspired every morning at nine o'clock." - Peter deVries

Agreed that the old rules of conduct between men and women, when one thinks about them or the reasons for them, appear silly. But I also think that, like good manners in general, they created greater ease in most situations. Neither gender, when the rules were known, had any doubts about what to say or what to do in most social situations. With some of the more ardent feminists, that ease can no longer be counted on.

I think that in times of transition, it is harder to gauge "appropriate behavior." People like to stay with what is familiar to them and change of any kind is difficult. Those who oppose this change can be just as ardent. Fundamentalist Christians come to mind. I think the one constant over time is to treat people as you would wish to be treated. Good manners are good manners regardless of gender. If someone berates you for opening a door, that personality type would most likely have berated you for something else in a previous era. What specific rules that are no longer in place do you believe cause the most consternation for men?